Do Liverpool fans want to Kop a load of this official LFC champagne?

In 2010, football clubs are about more than kicking a spherical object around the park and keeping the sexual transgressions of their highly-paid employees out of the papers. Oh yes, they’re all brands these days, and the more you can exploit a brand, the better it is for the club’s coffers.

Until it makes you look like a bunch of greedy tits that is. Which is where the new Liverpool FC off licence comes in. It proudly describes itself as ‘The only official Liverpool FC online off licence’ which is going to be a massive kick in the teeth for unofficial sites like Rush’s Rums, Kenny’s Cans and Paisley’s Plonk that we’ve just there made up.

In keeping with Liverpool’s working class tradition, the site sells... erm, nothing but champagne and fine wines, with three bottles of wine retailing for a wholly unreasonable £28.00 plus £9.00 delivery.

It’s an impressive commercial move, and is consistent with the incident last year when the club responded to a fan’s complaint about the dire state of affairs on the pitch by auto-replying with a generic email offering them a 15.9%APR Liverpool credit card.

They’re not the only club to flog booze though – languishing at the back of the Bitterwallet fridge for reasons we’re not quite sure about is an unopened 11 year-old bottle of Sunderland’s Premier lager. If it wasn’t for all the floaty stuff in the bottom of the bottle, we’d be tempted to crack it open.